ELIZABETH, CO — Candice Ensign hasn't taken a day off in years. The promise she made to more than 100 horses won't let her.

Ensign runs Journey with Equus, a horse rescue on her ranch in Elizabeth, Colorado. She made a commitment to each animal in her care — including Othello, a horse surrendered by his previous owner — that they are safe.

"This has always been my path and if I don't stand in the gap, who is?" Ensign said.

Watch Denver7 reporter Mike Castellucci's story in the video below:

Colorado woman's horse rescue gives abandoned animals a second chance while healing humans too

Ensign has been on the back of a horse since she was 3 years old. She was bullied in elementary school and junior high, and says the outside world sometimes didn't understand what it meant to be adopted. The horses were her refuge.

"I didn't go home and cry about it, because I had the horses. They loved me no matter what I looked like," Ensign said.

Now, she says, science backs up what she experienced as a child.

Journey with Equus is more than a rescue — it is also a place where people come to heal. Ensign regularly brings groups of strangers to her ranch to show them how rescued horses can help them work through their own pain. She calls some of her animals her "healing herds."

During one recent session, participants experienced quiet, intuitive moments with the horses. One of them, Connie Lamb, wandered over to Othello after the group returned to the barn.

"When I came out today I reached out and he let me pet him and I just started crying uncontrollably," Lamb said.

Lamb had visited the ranch a few weeks earlier and wanted to connect with Othello, but he was standoffish at the time.

"He was just saying, it's OK, we're here to support each other," Lamb said.

For Ensign, moments like that never get old.

"Some of the miracles we've seen in this work, it still brings tears to my eyes when I see it happening," Ensign said.

But sustaining the operation is a constant challenge. Journey with Equus runs entirely on grassroots support — there are no paid employees. The rescue relies on volunteers and foster homes, and feeding more than 100 horses each morning requires a significant amount of hay and resources.

"There's never enough funding," Ensign said.

The heart, though, has never run out.

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